


and the motion of light on her face

by tunemyart



Series: someone will remember us, i say, even in another time [2]
Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: F/F, hops around season six minus the finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 14:06:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17265545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunemyart/pseuds/tunemyart
Summary: Later, when they were curled up together under the stars, the ship rocking gently beneath them and Gabrielle’s pressure point activated to curtail her nausea, Gabrielle quietly confessed, “I feel even worse now. Knowing that Lila was holding on to my scrolls, raising her daughter on my stories. Like I was some kind of fairy tale.”Gabrielle reconciles herself to the myth of the Battling Bard of Poteidaia, twenty five years on, through the eyes of the woman who loves her.





	and the motion of light on her face

**Author's Note:**

> All of this is set in season six, but critically does not touch the finale. (Part Three of this series will do that.) In my personal headcanon, the entire series takes place in just under 10 years, putting Gabrielle at the end of the whole thing at roughly Xena’s age at the beginning - because, you know, I like things coming as full circle as possible, and also they do a lot of travelling. I won’t bore you with my math, but if you notice them alluding to having been together seven or eight or nine years, that’s why. We're still firmly in season six.
> 
> Titles of everything from Anne Carson’s translations of Sappho. The title of this one is from Fragment 16.

Xena didn’t think a single one of them was too upset to leave Mogador behind, but whatever mixed feelings abounded on the ship - and Xena wasn’t under any illusions that they didn't - they couldn’t have asked for better weather to make their escape.

 

Most of the girls had spent as much of the day on the deck as they could. Sun wasn’t something they’d gotten a lot of in Gurkhan’s harem, and neither was the freedom to move how they wanted. Eve and Virgil had made themselves useful and put themselves in charge of sorting out sleeping arrangements from the supplies onboard, while Gabrielle had stuck next to Sarah at the rail of the ship for most of the afternoon. Xena had mostly helped Eve and Virgil with organization efforts and left them to it, only approaching them again when the sun was starting to dip low in the sky.

 

“Sarah,” Xena could hear Gabrielle saying as she came up behind them. “Can I ask you something?”

 

Sarah was looking at Gabrielle warily - and Xena didn’t blame her, considering what she’d gone through and the myriad of things a concerned aunt might ask her niece. Still, she said, “Okay,” and waited.

 

“When I told you it was me and Xena, you said it wasn’t possible. What did you mean?”

 

Sarah’s expression eased at the question. “I grew up on stories about you two," she said. "My mother never stopped hoping you’d come back someday.”

 

Xena was only surprised to hear that she had apparently featured in these stories along with Gabrielle. Of all Gabrielle’s family, she’d had the easiest relationship with Lila, but it wasn’t what anyone would call ‘close’. She’d always gotten the impression that while Lila understood that Gabrielle needed to be with Xena, it hadn’t stopped her from resenting that that need had taken Gabrielle so far away and turned her into a stranger.

 

It was obvious from Sarah’s tone that she’d thought she’d learned better than Lila, and had accepted that she had an aunt who was probably dead, or at the very least, whom she would never meet. Certainly she must have never thought that she’d meet a version of her who was her own age.

 

“Stories?” Gabrielle was saying blankly.

 

“Mother hoarded your scrolls,” Sarah said, a little fondly. “She was so proud of you. I think… I think she always wished she’d been a little more like you.”

 

Silently, Xena intruded only to put an arm around Gabrielle, who looked like she could use the support. She knew it was the right choice when she felt Gabrielle lean into it gratefully. Sarah’s observant eyes were watching the exchange, and Xena looked back at her, wondering if she would say anything about it. _Gabrielle and Xena._ Xena wondered what else Lila had told Sarah about them.

 

But Sarah didn’t make any comment at all, only smiling faintly, maybe a little wistfully. “I almost started thinking you weren’t real. The stories were so fantastic, except everybody in Poteidaia insisted it was true. Or at least the part about you being from Poteidaia, from my family, was true, and that you’d gone away with Xena years before I was born. Seeing you open the door to my cell… hearing you say you were Gabrielle and Xena… I don’t think you understand how many times I dreamed you’d come for me. My warrior aunt, and the legendary Xena. It was like - it was like seeing the gods appear in front of me.” Sarah laughed, a little hysterically. “I still can’t quite believe you’re real, after all this time. That any of this is real.”

 

“Time will help with that,” Xena finally spoke as Gabrielle tucked herself reflexively further against her. “Trust me, I’m speaking from experience.”

 

“Perhaps,” Sarah acknowledged, hands clutching hard at the rail, the sea stretched out before them. “As long as I’m not going mad, I’ll take it.”

 

Despite everything that Gabrielle had gone through, Xena knew it was still hard for her to hear words like that come out of the mouth of someone she loved, if only because there was so little she could do about it. But the only thing she could do, she did; and Xena kept an eye on her small figure standing next to her niece’s tall one until the sun went down, and Sarah quietly withdrew to make her makeshift bed far from the other girls.

 

Later, when they were curled up together under the stars, the ship rocking gently beneath them and Gabrielle’s pressure point activated to curtail her nausea, Gabrielle quietly confessed, “I feel even worse now. Knowing that Lila was holding on to my scrolls, raising her daughter on my stories. Like I was some kind of fairy tale.” She scoffed, self-deprecating, and Xena caught Gabrielle’s hand where it was tapping agitatedly against her collar bone.

 

“Stories are powerful, especially when they’re all you have,” Xena said, listening to Gabrielle’s sigh. “You of all people should know that.”

 

“Of course I know,” Gabrielle snapped. “But she’s my sister. I’m _real._ Our being sisters - that’s real, Xena.”

 

“She knows that,” Xena said patiently. “Sarah knows that, too.”

 

“Like the gods appeared in front of her, she said. Some kind of vision. Gods, she must have thought I’d just abandoned her.”

 

Gabrielle didn’t specify whether it was Lila or Sarah she meant, but Xena supposed it didn’t matter. “You didn’t,” Xena said, and Gabrielle didn’t reply. Xena reassessed the situation, how tightly Gabrielle was holding her and the fear making her small frame tense under Xena’s hands, and the wheels in her mind turned a bit further.

 

“You didn’t abandon me, either,” Xena ventured, and knew she’d found the sore spot by the way Gabrielle flinched.

 

“I got you beaten nearly to death,” Gabrielle countered. “I wasn’t sure - “ she broke off abruptly, furiously taking her hand back to swipe at her tears.

 

“Hey. I did what I did because _I_ couldn’t abandon _you_ ,” Xena said firmly. She didn’t say what was true, that any amount of pain was worth the price of Gabrielle’s life, knowing it would only make matters worse. “And you didn’t abandon me. You kept me alive.”

 

“Sure didn’t feel like it,” Gabrielle muttered.

 

But Xena remembered how when her mind had been just at the point of floating out of her body, when the world became an unreal thing around her, Gabrielle had appeared before her, shining and beautiful and sensuous, her eyes fixed on Xena. There had been no promises or pleas on her lips, no _I’m coming,_ no _Hold on,_ just the immediacy and the freedom of the way her body moved for Xena’s eyes.

 

Xena wouldn’t have traded that vision for all the words in all of Gabrielle’s scrolls.

 

Even now, a chill passed through her just at the thought of such a sacred intimacy existing between them in the midst of so much pain and filth: the only real thing Xena’s soul could tether itself to. Compulsively, Xena pulled Gabrielle against her more tightly, her hands loving the strength in Gabrielle’s back, needing to feel the solidness of that sacred thing as it existed in the world, real and whole and unbroken.

 

“Never think you didn’t,” Xena whispered once she’d settled a willing Gabrielle on top of her, careless of the sight they made in the dark. “Never.”

 

 

* * *

 

  

“ _That_ was something I could have lived without."

 

Xena grinned, looking behind them where Piraeus lay in the distance. “What, you mean you don’t like people fawning over you? I thought that was the life of a bard as renowned as yourself.”

 

“Maybe if it had actually been for my barding,” Gabrielle said. “I’m less a fan of people mobbing us because they think we’re immortal, or whatever.”

 

“’Touched by the gods’, I think it was,” Xena said before grinning again, if only because Gabrielle still looked like she was taking this ridiculously seriously. “Oh come on, battling bard. We might as well have some fun with it.”

 

It succeed - briefly - in getting a smile out of Gabrielle.  “Can you believe people are actually calling me that?” she asked. “And everywhere we seem to go, too? It’s ridiculous.”

 

“More ridiculous than ‘warrior princess’?” Xena asked, pointedly.

 

“That wasn’t me,” Gabrielle protested. “People were calling you that long before you ever met me. And you liked it, don’t even try to fool me.”

 

Xena shrugged. She had liked it, had liked the sense of royalty and prestige in battle and war it had conferred on her, had liked the respect inherent in people’s tones when they’d referred to her. It wasn’t something she would have come up with on her own - given her pick of epithets, she would have gone with “Xena, Destroyer of Nations” in a heartbeat - but it was “Xena, Warrior Princess” that had stuck, and she’d known better than to fight something that was working the way she wanted it to just because of a quibble over a few words.

 

“I can believe that’s what they called you,” she said in answer to Gabrielle’s initial question. “It’s what you are.”

 

“I can’t figure out if it’s the ‘battling’ or the ‘bard’ part that I feel isn’t quite right,” Gabrielle said. “I haven’t written anything in… well, since we got back.”

 

‘Since we got back’ was the euphemism they’d come up with for ‘since we woke up after twenty five years’, and it had been working well for them when it came to avoiding too many painful implications of that fact. With practiced ease, Xena shrugged it off again now.

 

“Not that long ago, you said it was a good thing, being thought of more as a warrior than as a bard,” she probed gently.

 

Gabrielle looked less discomfited by that reminder than Xena had thought she would. “I thought a lot of things. The warrior part of me isn’t going away. There might have been a time I could have shut it off, but I think I’m way past that, now. And everything lately - I feel like I’m finally getting my instincts back.”

 

“You never lost them,” Xena told her, not for the first time. “You were just confused.”

 

“And that’s different?”

 

“Like you just said - there was a time you could have shut it off. Now you can’t. That’s the difference.” Gabrielle didn’t respond, but Xena studied her carefully in the silence broken only by the steady _clomp clomp clomp_ of hooves on the road. “You know, maybe you should start writing again. It sure sounds to me like it’s both the 'battling' and the 'bard' part you’re hung up on. What’s the problem?”

 

“I don’t know,” she said, but Xena could see perfectly well that she did. But Xena hadn’t spent nearly every day of eight years around Gabrielle without learning what to do, and so she patiently kept her silence and waited for it to get to her.

 

Predictably, it wasn’t a full minute before Gabrielle burst out, “It’s just - people are telling stories about _me_ now. They’ve made me into this mythical figure, almost, and I’m not that. I’m just Gabrielle, same as I’ve always been.”

 

Xena wanted to point out that Gabrielle had changed radically since she’d first talked Xena into tagging along with her outside of Amphipolis. Instead, she drawled, “Now what about this seems familiar?”

 

“This is _not my fault,_ ” Gabrielle said again, pouting in a way actually did make the teenager from Poteidaia shine right on through the woman she’d become. Xena grinned at the sight, completely endeared.

 

“It’s completely your fault,” Xena said, causing the pout to deepen. “You’re the one who’s insisted on telling stories about me _._ Aside from the fact that you somehow single handedly turned me from the scourge of the earth into a folk hero who’s still going strong twenty five years later, you’re also an indispensable part of my life. People aren’t blind, they can see that.”

 

Gabrielle ducked her head to hide a pleased smile.

 

“So what if you’re a visible part of my life?” Xena continued. “Deal with it. I’ve been dealing with it for thirty two years.”

 

“You weren’t awake for twenty five of them,” Gabrielle said, rolling her eyes, but she didn’t otherwise protest.

 

“You’re still seven years behind me,” Xena said, unrepentant. “And maybe if you really want to combat this whole ‘battling bard’ thing, the best way to do that is to pick up your quill again.”

 

“I don’t… necessarily… want to combat it,” was Gabrielle’s grudging reply.

 

“Ah _hah!_ I knew you liked it.”

 

“Shut up, oh _legendary warrior princess_.” But there was a smile on Gabrielle’s face too. Xena reached over and pushed her shoulder, quickly guiding Argo away to dodge Gabrielle’s return shove, cackling when Gabrielle overbalanced just slightly before righting herself. There was a gleam in Gabrielle’s eyes that Xena hadn’t seen in too long, and her cackle turned into a full on laugh when Gabrielle kicked her horse into a gallop and charged her off the road and into the open field next to it. Argo quickly complied with Xena’s hurried command and let Gabrielle chase them for long minutes until they were breathless from laughter and exertion and Xena’s hair was tangling in the wind around her.

 

“I think I needed that,” Xena admitted as they slowed to a walk.

 

“Me too,” Gabrielle agreed, sighing happily. Xena looked over at her, and found her flushed and grinning and almost unbearably attractive. Something of her thoughts must have showed on her face, because Gabrielle’s lips quirked up further as she watched.

 

“What?” she asked her.

 

Xena shook her head, aware now of the smile that had overtaken her face. “Nothin’.”

 

“Uh huh,” Gabrielle agreed, knowingly. “Xena?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Anytime.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Virgil had had enough of travelling with them after the incident with the cannibals - “I don’t blame him,” Gabrielle had said grimly - and when he said he wanted to go back home for a while, Xena was the one to suggest they accompany him there.

 

“Not forever,” he was quick to remind them more than once.

 

“Just long enough,” Gabrielle supplied.

 

“Right,” he said gratefully. “You just need to go home every once in a while, you know?”

 

"We do," Gabrielle said, and smoothly moved the subject right along before there could be any backtracking into the emotional minefields of either Amphipolis or Poteidaia. “Will Meg be expecting us?” 

 

Virgil seemed surprised at the question and the familiar use of his mother's name, before he caught himself and chuckled. “It’s funny," he said. "I keep forgetting you know her." 

 

Xena made a face and looked down at herself, the words _are you kidding me_ on the tip of her tongue. How that boy didn’t see the resemblance -

 

“Take it as a compliment,” Gabrielle whispered to her, patting her abdomen over her leathers.

 

“I guess it’s just because my dad talked about you guys so much more,” Virgil continued, oblivious.

 

“I figured,” Xena said dryly, for which she received a more solid  _thwap_ to her stomach. “Ow,” she hissed. Gabrielle ignored her.

 

“You mean all the paraphernalia of you two? Yeah, that was him,” Virgil said. “You know, Gabrielle, he actually managed to get a hold of one of your last scrolls up for auction not that long ago. Mom was mad about how much he’d paid for it, but he thought it was important.”

 

“Up for auction?” Gabrielle repeated, looking quickly to Xena, who was careful to keep her face neutral. “Virgil, what do you mean Meg was upset about how much he’d paid for it?”

 

“Because it’s so rare and expensive - the originals, I mean, the ones that are actually in your hand. I think I can find it when we get there, if you’re interested.”

 

Virgil was good on his word, and disappeared briefly once they’d arrived. Meg was busy with guests, leaving Gabrielle and Xena to their own devices. Xena couldn't help but watch her and see a vision of herself in the tavern she'd grown up in, and wonder  _what if -_

 

She managed to snap herself out of it before she got too self-indulgent, saying a rare, quiet prayer for her mother before Gabrielle's voice broke into her thoughts.

 

“Xena, If I’d known Joxer had wanted the scrolls, I would have given him some of them,” she said, looking pained. “I don’t feel right about him having to buy one.”

 

Xena kept the thought to herself that Joxer would have done just about anything to have a piece of Gabrielle, especially after he’d thought she was gone from the world. No wonder Meg had been upset. “There’s nothing you can do about it now,” Xena said. “Just trust that it made him happy. We got to see him again, and that’s what he really wanted.”

 

“Still - _auctions_ ,” Gabrielle said. “I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to this.”

 

“You’d better start,” Xena said, nodding toward Virgil’s returning figure. “I think you’ve inspired another generation of bards, starting with that one.”

 

“What, Virgil?” Gabrielle asked, clearly startled. “He writes?”

 

Xena scoffed. “You need to pay better attention to your admirers.”

 

“I’m trying not to,” Gabrielle muttered as Virgil reentered the room, and Xena smirked. It was seeming more and more likely that Virgil would follow in his father’s footsteps in remaining oblivious to the nature of Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship. Then again, while Xena had always thought Gabrielle’s scrolls were embarrassingly easy to read into, apparently it was something that had been up for debate in the last twenty five years.

 

“Here it is,” Virgil said, handing it over to her like it was the Olympic torch. Gabrielle took it hesitantly, and Xena looked over her shoulder curiously as she carefully unrolled the paper. “It’s your last scroll - right before Ares took you both away - “

 

“By the gods,” Gabrielle whispered in shock, tracing over her own handwriting. “This is mine.”

 

“ - so it’s not finished, but my dad knew the rest of the story, or at least he thought he did - “ Virgil broke off at the sound of Gabrielle’s voice. “Of course it’s yours. Did you think my dad didn’t know your handwriting?”

 

“What? No, no, it’s just - it’s just surprising, is all,” she said distractedly, still running her fingers disbelievingly over the paper that twenty five years of spotty care had made delicate.

 

Xena could remember her writing that very scroll in between their scheming and running, and knew Gabrielle could probably remember more. Gabrielle could probably remember buying the blank scroll and the merchant who’d sold it to her and the conversation she’d had with him. Gabrielle could probably remember the strokes of her quill on that scroll as she’d set it down, and she could probably remember a thousand other things that had been going on around her while she’d done it.

 

“I hope you don’t mind me saying that your scrolls are a huge part of what inspired me to start writing,” Virgil said, looking shyly at Gabrielle, who tensed in discomfort. Xena resisted the urge to clap an _I told you so_ hand on her shoulder. “Would you mind - I mean, it’d be a huge honor if you have time to look at my scrolls.”

 

“Oh, we have time,” Xena said cheerfully. Gabrielle glared up at her through a smile, and then Xena did clap that hand on her shoulder.

 

“I’d love to,” Gabrielle told Virgil through gritted teeth.

 

“Oh, wow! Okay, hold on, let me - “ and he was off again.

 

“Xena,” Gabrielle said quietly, warningly. “What was that?”

 

“What? You have a responsibility to the arts,” Xena said.

 

“You know how most people things are,” Gabrielle said. “He’s Virgil, but I mean, his stuff probably isn’t that good.”

 

“Well, you’ve certainly gotten a pretty big head since you started out,” Xena commented. “I didn’t want to say anything, but your stuff was a little painful when you were starting out, too.” Gabrielle shot her a betrayed look that didn’t faze Xena, as she knew Gabrielle had done significant rewriting of her earliest scrolls once she’d actually gotten some skills under her belt.

 

“You did say something at the time, as I recall,” Gabrielle muttered.

 

Xena ignored that comment. “Come on, Gabrielle,” she implored her. “It’ll make him so happy, and we’re not likely to see him again for a while at least. You know you wouldn’t forgive yourself if you didn’t.”

 

“Ugh,” said Gabrielle, which Xena also knew was her way of saying _yes, of course you’re right, Xena, thank you for helping me see all these things more clearly._

 

It wasn’t a bad afternoon, actually. Xena got a chance to catch up with Meg, and whenever Xena looked over at the table where Gabrielle and Virgil were holed up, they were always deep in discussion. Maybe his stuff wasn’t as bad as Gabrielle had thought it would be, after all.

 

“The men in my family always did have a thing for her,” Meg said ruefully when Xena popped back into the kitchen the third time. “I guess I got used to it. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Xena. I know Joxer loved me, and I know Gabrielle ain’t about to steal my boy away. She only ever had eyes for one person.” She waggled her eyebrows at Xena. “You two still - ?”

 

Xena couldn’t quite suppress a smile. It was good to know that no matter what, Meg would always be Meg.

 

“Yup,” confirmed Xena. “We’re still.”

 

“Hmm. Good for you, I say. You know she’s just made my boy’s entire year,” Meg commented. “Joxer built you both up into these legends in our boy’s mind - I mean, just look around this place, right? - but you know how he got around her. I think he got Virgil worshipping her more than the gods, if I’m being honest.”

 

Well, that was unsurprising. Xena certainly didn’t need Meg to tell her what had happened. “The gods can’t help him now,” she replied offhandedly.

 

Meg snorted at that. “What, and little miss perfect out there can?”

 

It was more incisiveness than Xena was used to from her, and it threw her just slightly off balance. There was the bitterness lying underneath it all for the way Joxer had died, too, and in what company, and for what reason. It was something she knew would always live as a wound in Gabrielle’s soul, and she knew that deep down, Meg knew it, too.

 

“Gabrielle would move the world to help her friends,” Xena said.

 

“Yeah. She would,” agreed Meg seriously. “But sometimes she can’t.”

 

Xena peeked out the door at her again. Gabrielle’s blonde head was bent over Virgil’s scroll, and Xena knew from experience that if she tried to interrupt now, she’d have limited success and a very cranky bard on her hands. Gabrielle was thoroughly in another world, lost in her own mind. And Xena knew very well the power that mind had to raise up dead things and breathe her own life into them.

 

Virgil was looking on with a mixture of anxiety and adoration, helplessly earnest in the same way Gabrielle still could be if Xena looked hard enough. There was a hint of it even now in the concentration on her face, and the determined slash of her quill, and the tone of her voice when she said something to Virgil that Xena couldn’t hear.

 

“Sometimes,” Xena finally agreed, smiling faintly. “But don’t underestimate her.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was too cold to camp on the shores of the Rhine. Gabrielle had taken one look at the way Xena was still shivering after drying off as best as she could from her trip to return the rheingold and declared that they’d be finding an inn and a hot bath in the next town.

 

“I’ve been sleeping outside on a rock for a year, anyway,” she said.

 

“At least you were surrounded by fire the whole time,” Xena grumbled. “Must have kept you nice and warm.”

 

“Poor warrior princess,” Gabrielle teased her. “Not suited to luxurious noble life in the cold northern hinterlands?”

 

“Cold places, castles,” Xena remarked lightly, and Gabrielle smirked, but there was a hint of a question to it that she didn’t voice.

 

By a stroke of luck, the next town wasn’t far, and the room and the bath were easy to procure between Gabrielle’s enthusiastic haggling and the small coin purse Beowulf had left them with as a gift. Gabrielle wasted no time stripping them both down and pushing Xena into the warm bath, apparently satisfied only when Xena’s body stopped shivering and fully relaxed against the back of the tub.

 

With the snow only just starting to melt in the mountains and the passes a few weeks from opening up again, travellers on the road and at the inns were few and far between, and they had the baths pretty much to themselves. Ordinarily in such circumstances, Xena wouldn’t have hesitated to pull Gabrielle against her until the combined comfort of warmth and bare skin lulled them both into a light doze.

 

“Is everything okay?” Gabrielle asked when she didn’t.

 

“Fine,” Xena said, and gave her a quick, reassuring smile. “Cold.”

 

It obviously didn’t do much to convince Gabrielle, but she let it go anyway, apparently sensing that Xena needed to call she shots on this one.

 

That lasted until the middle of the night. They hadn’t spoken in hours, not since Xena had extinguished the candle on the table, but Xena was keenly aware that Gabrielle had been lying wide awake next to her for all that time. Still, it didn’t stop her soft voice coming as a shock in the still night.

 

“Did something happen?”

 

“What?” Xena asked, rolling over to face her.

 

“Did something happen?” she repeated. “You won’t touch me, and it’s been a year, and I’m worried.”

 

“No, no,” Xena assured her. She'd never been able to stomach that mixture of concerned and hurt on Gabrielle's face, and being confronted with the sight of it now made it easy for her to get over herself enough to reach out and pull Gabrielle into her arms. Gabrielle settled into them with a sigh of relief, and somehow, the cold parts of Xena that the warm bath hadn’t been able to reach started to thaw. “Nothing like what you’re thinking. I lost all my memories - you know that - and ended up married to a king.”

 

Gabrielle looked up and touched her face. “Sure sounds like something happened.”

 

“Nah,” Xena said. “Beowulf got me out of there before - well, before.”

 

“Good,” said Gabrielle. She said nothing else, clearly giving Xena space to continue if she wanted it.

 

Xena didn’t particularly, caught up instead in the memory of the last time they’d been this close. It had been a stolen moment in the middle of a forest, Brunhilde and Beowulf not far away, and three months of separation just behind them.

 

They’d both been fully clothed, Gabrielle braced against a tree with Xena’s uninjured thigh between her legs. It hadn’t taken long at all for Gabrielle to tense and shudder and break her lips away from Xena’s to quietly keen and gasp for air. Greedily, Xena had taken in Gabrielle’s bright eyes and flushed face as she recovered, breathing in her heavy breaths almost before they could fog in the cold air between them.

 

“You’re jealous,” Gabrielle had deduced, stroking back her hair from her temples in that tender way she’d always had. “Don’t be jealous.”

 

Typical Gabrielle, completely unaware of just how unassailably beautiful she was. Xena had still been tempted to suck a mark on her neck where her coat wouldn’t cover it - three people who were head over heels for Gabrielle and she was the only one who would have had the opportunity - but Gabrielle’s eyes were soft and indulgently amused. Gabrielle would let her if she really wanted to, and that fact alone was enough to make her forehead drop heavily into the crook of Gabrielle’s shoulder in submission. Gabrielle had laughed quietly, cradled her head, and kissed her cheek.

 

“I can’t believe _you’re_ the one who has _me_ like this when you’re the one who wasn’t planning on coming back,” she’d said, the edge Xena had been predicting creeping into her voice, and from where her face was still hidden in Gabrielle’s shoulder, Xena winced and grunted.

 

Thankfully, Gabrielle hadn’t pursued that line of thought. “Don’t leave me again,” she’d whispered instead, the second time that day she’d made that plea; and still, not two hours later, Xena had done just that.

 

Gabrielle’s touch now was just as tender as it had been then, her eyes frequently checking Xena’s face.

 

“I didn’t let him touch me,” Xena said suddenly. Thank the gods, she’d had at least that much sense.

 

“It wouldn’t matter to me if you had,” Gabrielle said, eyebrows knit in concern. “Xena, you’d lost your memories. Your entire sense of self. Whatever happened, or didn’t happen - it wasn’t your fault.”

 

Gabrielle’s fingers were still lightly stroking the inside of her arm, and Xena’s eyes closed at the feeling.

 

“Wasn’t it?” she couldn’t help but mutter, and instantly regretted it when Gabrielle stopped, her hands coming up to Xena’s shoulders instead.

 

“Hey,” she said. “Look at me. We don’t have to do this now. We don’t have to do this ever again.”

 

“I didn’t let him touch me,” was all Xena could repeat, remembering too well how close a thing it had been. She held back a distasteful shudder at the memory of Hrothgar’s meaty paws on her body, and the way that confused weakling of a woman she’d been eventually would have allowed it. Gabrielle’s hands were still on her shoulders, though, and Xena refused to let her feel a negative reaction in her body when she wasn’t the cause of it.

 

“Okay,” Gabrielle said, searching her eyes. “But something did happen to you.”

 

Mutely, Xena shook her head. They’d have to talk about it at some point, but at the moment there was nothing Xena wanted less. Not with her mind still jumbled with visions of a warrior woman she’d known in the depths of her heart when she hadn’t even known her own name.

 

Because while that damned ring had corrupted everything she was, and all of her memories, the one thing it hadn’t actually touched was the one thing it was supposed to.

 

Those visions of Gabrielle hadn’t been the first to spring up out of her soul. They hadn’t even been the second. And while Xena had felt from very early on that some part of her soul had caught itself on Gabrielle’s and twined itself there until there was no hope of her getting it free, even if she’d wanted to, she didn’t quite know what to do with that fact. She certainly didn’t have the words to share it with Gabrielle, even if Gabrielle had a better history of reacting to Xena having visions.

 

She’d been wondering for a while if Alti had done more than curse her with a vision all those years ago, certain that that bitch had somehow opened a pathway between her and Gabrielle that Gabrielle somehow hadn’t discovered, while simultaneously burying that vision so deep in her that Xena knew it would never leave her: Gabrielle stretched on a cross at her side, lips blue from cold, snow in her hair, smiling beatifically.

 

 _I love you, Xena_ , she was saying.

 

Gabrielle had never understood Xena’s terror of that vision whenever it assaulted her mind, if only because Xena had always been careful to leave that part out. _I love you_ , _Xena_ , and Xena had felt an unspeakable preemptive grief whenever Gabrielle had said those words for over a year.

 

 _Don’t_ , she’d wanted to shout at her, never knowing if she wanted Gabrielle to retract the words or the love itself, only knowing with an inexplicable surety that it was that love that would lead to her death at Xena’s side, just as she’d always feared it would. Only this death was already set, already woven by the Fates down to every last detail. The biting drive of the wind. The coarseness of the ropes biting into her wrists and ankles. The snow in their hair. The love lighting Gabrielle’s face, even to the end.

 

Xena had forgotten everything else, but she could never forget that. A strange warrior woman had appeared before her, her eyes soft, soft - and Xena had known who she was instantly.

 

 _This Gabrielle truly loved Xena?_ Xena had asked Beowulf, shaken to the core; and Beowulf had replied, _Until the end of time._

 

Now, Gabrielle was confused, but so serious and so patient. Deliberately, Xena took Gabrielle’s hands off of her shoulders and placed them instead over her breasts, relishing Gabrielle’s sharp inhale as her fingers tightened reflexively on them over the material of her shift.

 

“Are you sure?” she asked, her eyes still intent on Xena’s, and Xena nodded.

 

“Nothing happened that you don’t know about, I’m just a mess,” Xena assured her. “Please - remind me?”

 

Solemnly, Gabrielle nodded, and pulled Xena’s face down to kiss her lips softly until they yielded to her. Every touch of her hands on Xena’s body was familiar, and Xena could remember a thousand times her hands had swept in just this way over her hips, down her back, to cup her breasts, across her stomach, into her hair. Gabrielle’s handprints had never left her body, and Xena felt them all igniting the more Gabrielle continued to follow those familiar paths until she’d unlocked a Xena who knew and responded to her instinctively.

 

It was thoughtless, the way she submitted to the firm press of Gabrielle’s sure hands as they guided her to lay on her back. Xena looked up at her in a haze, stunned as always by the homecoming she felt at the love and focus written into every line of Gabrielle’s face.

 

Gabrielle noticed. “What?” she asked softly.

 

Xena shook her head. How was it possible, she wondered, that she’d forgotten this? But then of course, in all the ways that mattered - she hadn’t.

 

“I love you,” Xena whispered, and Gabrielle smiled.

 

By the time Gabrielle was mouthing her way up Xena’s calf towards her inner thigh, Xena’s legs parting without thought to give her room, Xena felt herself floating just below the surface of a great body of water, still and calm, just waiting to break the surface. On the other side, Gabrielle shimmered, a vision made solid by the touch of Xena’s hands on her shoulders, her neck, her hair.

 

“Xena,” Gabrielle whispered, and in some hazy place, Xena heard it just before she covered her with her tongue.

 

The moment suspended indefinitely, Xena sure she would never break the surface until she inevitably did, bursting forth on a power that wasn’t entirely her own. It was Gabrielle, was all she could think _._ It was Gabrielle restoring something to her that she’d forgotten she couldn’t live without; it was Gabrielle real and solid, pressed all along the insides of Xena’s legs, her hair smooth between Xena’s tight fingers; it was Gabrielle’s name endlessly in her mouth after a year of having been silenced: _Gabrielle, Gabrielle, Gabrielle._

 

And finally, it was Gabrielle stroking a hip and soothing her down while she caught her breath, still reeling but no longer out of control. Gabrielle was waiting for her the way she always did when Xena was fragile, chin resting on Xena’s stomach and smiling, almost transparently pleased with herself through the concern that dominated her expression.

 

“Alright?” she asked, but it was clear she knew the answer.

 

Xena laughed breathlessly, pushing her fingers through Gabrielle’s mussed hair, which at least for now was gloriously long again. She looked so like she had before all this madness - before they’d lost twenty five years, before Eve, before their crucifixions, before even India - and if Xena had wanted to, she could have pretended, just for a moment.

 

But Xena didn’t want to - not even for a moment.

 

 _I love you,_ Xena thought, feeling it bubble up in her chest and spread through her body on the tailwinds of the pleasure still tingling in her extremities.

 

“Great,” she answered, and tugged Gabrielle up until she was straddling her hips. It was easy then to sweep her own hands over Gabrielle’s body and watch her arch, to reach between her legs and circle her fingers knowingly so that Gabrielle cursed with the sudden immediacy of her own need.

 

“You?” Xena asked innocently.

 

Gabrielle only moaned, and the sound was so familiar that Xena laughed again in pure delight.

 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she murmured.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Gabrielle?”

 

Xena turned to the two men had come up behind them. She didn’t recognize them, and a quick glance to Gabrielle confirmed that she didn’t either.

 

“That’s me,” Gabrielle said cautiously, her eyes darting quickly toward Xena, who was already on guard. “Can I help you?”

 

The men looked as though they’d seen a ghost, and Xena had the uneasy feeling that maybe they had. She studied them more closely, trying to find features under the beards that she might have recognized on men twenty five years younger. Regardless, she felt all of her protective instincts rearing up the longer they stared at Gabrielle.

 

“By the gods,” the one on the left breathed.

 

“It’s as though time hasn’t laid her hands upon you,” said the other.

 

Gabrielle stared. “Euripides?” she asked, and looked to the other. “Homer?”

 

They nodded. “We thought you were dead,” said the man Gabrielle had identified as Homer. “We organized a search for you - your scrolls are kept in archives at the Academy in your honor - “

 

Gabrielle had moved silently to put her arms around them both; and as if they were both still the boys Xena had met so long ago, they hugged her back in a tangle of arms and bodies.

 

“It’s a long story,” Gabrielle whispered. “I’m just so glad to see you both.”

 

“We’d heard some stories about you and Xena pop up recently, but we thought it couldn’t have been anything more than people spinning folk tales,” Homer said, letting her go and nodding to Xena in greeting. Xena nodded back, but hung back to let them have this moment. “We thought - we thought it was just people taking familiar names and making new stories around them, it didn’t sound like you at all. But Euripides and I were already in Macedonia, and we kept hearing, and we had to come see…” Homer trailed off, seemingly overcome again. “By the gods, Gabrielle. I can’t believe it’s really you.”

 

“It’s a long story…” Gabrielle repeated, and she trailed off as Xena watched the enormity of it press down on her. Xena smiled ruefully and grasped her shoulder.

 

“I’ll get us all some drinks, huh?” she offered, and Gabrielle smiled up at her gratefully.

 

Gabrielle ended up spinning a simplified version of their story, leaving out everything except the way the gods had hunted them and why, and how their attempts to escape them had backfired. Xena was content to watch her and enjoy the way a part of her came to life that had been dormant for… well, for longer than Xena could actually place off the top of her head. When was the last time Gabrielle had done the bard thing? When was the last time she’d even told Xena a story?

 

“And your daughter?” Euripides asked when it was clear that Gabrielle had finished, looking between them. “Is she safe?”

 

Xena smiled darkly at that. “Let’s just say the gods aren’t going to be bothering her anymore.” Confused, both men shifted their gaze to Gabrielle, who patted Xena’s forearm warningly.

 

“She’s safe, but you can understand why we’re a little skittish about sharing too much about her,” she said diplomatically.

 

Gabrielle let the story end there and turned the conversation around to them, and the men caught her up on their successes and how the rest of her friends from the Academy were doing. Gabrielle made all the right noises of surprise, but it was enough to make Xena’s eyes narrow in suspicion.

 

Surprisingly, Gabrielle didn’t seem too eager to linger as she had in the past, only extracting information from the men about where in Athens she could find them and calling the night to an end while the tavern was still full of patrons. In one corner, a bard was gearing up for his second story of the night when they stepped out the door and went their separate ways.

 

They agreed to make camp at an attractive spot not too far out of town along a beautiful river that Xena could tell she’d easily be able to catch fish in for their breakfast. Since they’d eaten at the tavern, Xena’s usual share of chores were minimal, and she stood where she was, enjoying by the way the flickering light of their fire moved over Gabrielle’s face as she built and banked it, and how the interplay of shadow and light enhanced her beauty to something almost otherworldly.

 

Gabrielle had always been a beautiful woman, and Xena had never been surprised when men - or women - took an interest in her, even from the first days of their travelling together. Homer and Euripides’ interests weren’t surprising either, even all these years later, but Xena also guessed that they saw something more like this in her, too - this indefinable something that went beyond what Xena could even attempt to put words to.

 

“Hey - you know you can talk to me about anything, right?” Xena asked her.

 

Gabrielle threw her a questioning glance. “Of course. Why?”

 

“I don’t know. It just seemed back there like you already knew everything Homer and Euripides were telling you.”

 

Gabrielle’s expression grew guarded at her words. “I’m allowed to have things for myself, Xena,” she said tersely, and Xena raised her hands in submission.

 

“I know you are,” she said. “But if you wanted to go find your friends from the Academy - you know you could? And you know that I’d go with you?”

 

Gabrielle was still looking at her searchingly, as if she couldn’t quite tell what it was that Xena trying to say. Xena sighed, stepped forward, and ran her hands down her arms until she held her hands in each of hers.

 

“You’ve been walking my path for a long time now,” she said. “Maybe it’s time I should walk yours for a while.”

 

But Gabrielle snorted. “I don’t even know what that would look like,” she said.

 

“Maybe that’s the problem,” Xena tried.

 

“Xena - no.” She made a frustrated noise and tugged her hands free of Xena’s. Slightly stung, Xena let her go. “Look, I’m more a warrior now than a bard, nobody thinks of me like that anymore.”

 

Xena could have pointed out that she herself did, and so did her Academy friends, who were apparently now some of the biggest names in drama and poetry. She considered for the thousandth time if Gabrielle’s name could have been up there with them, rightfully recognized for her works for centuries to come in the minds of their countrymen and the world, but pushed it aside just as quickly when she considered, also for the thousandth time, that Gabrielle had also made it clear that it wasn’t a fate she wanted for herself.

 

“Do you mean - _you_ don’t think of yourself like that anymore?” Xena hesitantly parsed, and Gabrielle’s face grew tight again.

 

“It’s not even that, it’s - I don’t know how I think of myself. It’s not that either thing is wrong, they’re just not quite right, either.”

 

“You’re allowed to be both, you know. Nobody’s just one thing.”

 

“Not just one thing, no,” Gabrielle agreed. “But they have a direction, usually.”

 

 _Oh,_ Xena realized with sudden clarity. “And your direction has been me,” Xena finished.

 

She’d been failing Gabrielle, she knew she had, but after almost two years of running from crisis to crisis carrying a baby either in her womb or across her back, she hadn’t realized just how much. Gabrielle wrestling with being a pacifist seemed lifetimes behind them.

 

“That’s not a bad thing,” Gabrielle said, determinedly holding Xena’s eyes. “I don’t regret it now, and I’d do it again. I love you.”

 

“Gabrielle,” Xena murmured, inexplicably overcome.

 

“And you’re right,” Gabrielle continued. “I haven’t been talking to you. And that is my fault. I think - I think I got used to it, because first with the pregnancy, and then with the gods - and somebody had to be you when you couldn’t be - “

 

It was hard to hear, but it was only confirmation of a truth Xena had been living with since she’d realized that she was somehow, impossibly pregnant. Gabrielle’s hurt had radiated from her for months even over her genuine excitement, and Xena had understood. Well, mostly, at least. It had taken Xena years to understand just how jealous a person Gabrielle was, and she knew it hadn’t been easy for her.

 

And yet Xena had watched her settle into a grim determination the larger Xena’s belly had grown, and they’d spent the next year in a state of constant exhaustion and fear. They hadn’t had the luxury of Gabrielle questioning her path. Gabrielle had known it, and Xena had known it; and somewhere along the line, Gabrielle must have added it to the list of things that she wouldn’t ever bring up and that it would never occur to Xena needed to be brought up at all until it was almost too late.

 

Like now, for instance.

 

“I’m sorry,” Xena said quietly, and Gabrielle looked up, startled at the rare apology, before her face smoothed into forgiveness.

 

“It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault,” she said, exonerating them both. “We’re here now. Eve’s alive. The gods aren’t a problem anymore. We won.”

 

Xena wasn’t sure she’d go that far, but it wasn’t entirely untrue either. “Tomorrow, you pick our next direction,” she said, caressing Gabrielle’s soft cheek with her palm. “I know you’re confused, but it’s a start.”

 

Gabrielle laughed disbelievingly even as she leaned into it. “Xena, I don’t even know - “

 

“We have all the time in the world,” Xena said calmly. “It’s just you and me.”

 

“Like old times,” Gabrielle said, her own smile wry.

 

“Maybe not exactly,” Xena admitted. “But I still wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

 

It was enough. Gabrielle smiled, rose up on tiptoe, and kissed her lips sweetly.

 

“Let’s just go to bed, huh?” she said, her eyes very soft, and it was impossible for Xena not to lean down and kiss her again with a heat that had them both short of breath. Xena felt a sudden, sharp need to have her spread out beneath her, bare and flushed and building to a scream. From Gabrielle’s expression and the beautiful tension Xena could already feel coiling under her hands, she thought it was probably an achievable goal.

 

It was the work of minutes to finish setting up their camp for sleep, and a comfortable silence stretched over them that Xena relaxed into gratefully. It felt like something had settled between them that had been held in suspense without her quite realizing, and it made it all the easier to feel the closeness of Gabrielle, and how very unbreakable and alive the thing between them was.

 

“I do want to write sometimes,” Gabrielle confessed unexpectedly when Xena approached her where she was waiting for her, sprawled on top of their furs. “It’s just that I feel like in some ways, it’s not my story anymore. It’s changed. It’s left me behind when I wasn’t looking.” Whatever she found on Xena’s face made her chuckle self-depracatingly. “I know I must sound ridiculous.”

 

“No, no,” Xena said quickly, trying to rearrange her face into something more sympathetic and less like she wasn’t following. “I mean, sure, I don’t really understand, but - “

 

“It’s fine.”

 

“It’s not fine,” Xena countered. “Writing, your stories - these were such huge parts of your life.”

 

Gabrielle looked up at her again, a tiny smile on her lips and in the very corners of her eyes. “ _You’re_ a huge part of my life.”

 

“But I can’t be the only thing in your life,” Xena said softly.

 

“Maybe,” she replied, but it was noncommittal at best. “You know my scrolls from before were basically my love letters to you.”

 

Xena knew that, but she’d gone a long time without being able to appreciate it. “Well, maybe I’d like some more love letters,” she suggested.

 

“Feeling insecure?” Gabrielle teased her.

 

She knew what Xena was up to, that was for sure, and so Xena gave up the game as a lost cause - for now - and eased down next to her instead, tugging with just enough force on the back of her top that the whole thing came loose.

 

“Maybe,” she teased back _._

 

Gabrielle fixed her with a look that Xena met with wide eyes and an innocent shrug, even as her hands divested Gabrielle of her top entirely.

 

“Maybe it’s less about being left behind and more about becoming something new,” Xena said, a final serious thought as Gabrielle’s breasts were revealed, nipples already stiffening in the cool night air before they found themselves rolled underneath Xena’s thumbs. “Just think about it.”

 

“Xena?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

Gabrielle looped her arms around Xena’s neck. “Please shut up and kiss me.”

 

Smiling, Xena complied.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Gabrielle was the one to propose they temporarily split ways when Xena’s help was requested in Syrakousai.

 

“I’ve had my fill of boats for the year,” she declared. “If you can handle this one, I think I’ll head to Poteidaia and see how Sarah’s getting settled in with Lila.”

 

Xena didn’t like being apart from Gabrielle for so long, and nearly pointed out that Gabrielle’s alarming seasickness was pretty much a thing of the past before she realized that maybe this was Gabrielle’s way of asking for some family time. So Xena had sighed and agreed to meet her in Athens in a month’s time.

 

The business in Syrakousai ended up revolving around some family in exile from Mytilene, and was dealt with easily enough that left Xena irritated and wondering under her breath if she’d actually been needed in the first place. She was halfway out of the family’s house to find the fastest ship back to Greece - maybe she could meet up with Gabrielle in Poteidaia - when she heard someone call, “Sappho!”

 

The name registered, and Xena doubled back.

 

“You’re Sappho?” Xena asked the woman who’d appeared at the sound of the name. She had a few years on Xena, but not too many, and clearly came from wealth. Xena hadn’t met her during the day and a half she’d been here, but by the look of the ink stains on the woman’s hands, that might not mean anything.

 

She looked at Xena with mild interest. “Yes. Who’s asking?”

 

Xena couldn’t help the grin that overtook her face. “My name’s Xena,” she said, stepping closer. “I’ve got a friend who’s gonna be real upset with me that I got to meet you and she didn’t.”

 

“Xena?” Sappho asked, eyes gleaming with suddenly keen interest. “Is your friend the bard Gabrielle, by any chance?”

 

“You know her?”

 

“Who doesn’t know of her?” asked Sappho, clapping her hands together with delight. “I’m a huge fan of her work. I _avidly_ followed her stories about your travels together. Come, come, sit with me awhile.”

 

Xena wasn’t a poet, wasn’t a bard, didn’t really understand Gabrielle’s work even when she could bring herself to read it and encounter herself as seen through Gabrielle’s eyes, but she knew enough about Sappho and her immense popularity to feel the surreal nature of the moment settle around them, especially at the fact that Gabrielle wasn’t part of it.

 

“You know,” Xena said, chuckling a little, “this would have made a great birthday present for her.”

 

“Well, if it’s her birthday, I’m sure I could jot something down for her,” Sappho said with a teasing lilt and an appreciative eye cast over Xena. Xena raised an eyebrow. Sappho caught Xena’s look and grinned, her wolfish expression easily melting into something friendly and understanding. “For something small in trade, of course,” she finished.

 

Or maybe Xena had misread ‘friendly and understanding’.

 

“I don’t have a lot of money on me,” Xena said with a hint of a warning that money would be the extent of what she’d offer in trade.

 

Sappho wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Or _that_. It would be an honor to write something for a bard as renowned as Gabrielle. All I want is for you to tell me about her. I mean, if you think she’ll like something personal.”

 

“Tell you about her?” Xena repeated, bemused.

 

“Yes. How _you_ know her - the woman, not the legend,” said Sappho, resting her chin on her hand and gazing expectantly at Xena.

 

It was an expression that threw Xena years back, like an unexpected punch to her gut, to a much younger Gabrielle having just finished relating a story or a poem to Xena and waiting impatiently for her feedback.

 

“Did you say you followed her stories about us?” Xena asked, suddenly aware that Sappho had to be in her early forties, which meant that she’d read them when she was -

 

“Oh yes, they were quite formative,” she confirmed cheerfully. It was distressingly easy to imagine a teenaged Sappho sighing over Gabrielle’s scrolls. “It’s an unexpected delight to be sitting with you in the flesh. But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about that. Now, Gabrielle?” she asked, pointedly.

 

And so, grumbling, Xena did her best.

 

How to give a portrait of Gabrielle in a few minutes, when Gabrielle was nine long years of love and heartache and loyalty and betrayal and trust? When Gabrielle was a bard and a warrior and still so genuinely _good_ despite her vanity and all the hurt the world had thrown at her? People fell helplessly in love with Gabrielle minutes after meeting her, as inexorably drawn to her beauty and strength as Xena was. She could make the world bend at her feet if only she realized it.

 

“You love her very much,” said Sappho, remarkably even-toned in counterpoint to the gleam in her eye. Xena ducked her head self-consciously, uncomfortable with being so on display, even if it was voluntarily. The entire known world knew that she loved Gabrielle, it wasn’t a secret she’d ever been interested in keeping, but talking about it with anyone other than Gabrielle - and sometimes even with Gabrielle - made her twitchy.

 

“Yeah, I do,” she agreed, and Sappho sighed, smiling. Xena rolled her eyes, but fortunately, it only seemed to amuse Sappho.

 

“Leave it with me,” she told Xena. “I’ve got something in mind.”

 

And sure enough, in the morning, Sappho pressed a scroll into Xena’s hand.

 

“As promised, for your Gabrielle.”

 

Xena accepted it, silently asking if it was alright it she read it. Sappho made little urging motions with her hands, and so Xena carefully unrolled it and read.

 

 _For your Gabrielle,_ Sappho had said, and it was.

 

Xena knew that Gabrielle knew she was well loved. Xena acted on the feeling more than she said the words, but she’d never let the words go unspoken when it mattered. But having it in writing, a tangible thing that Gabrielle could touch and read and keep close - Xena couldn’t believe she’d never thought of it before. It was precisely the sort of thing Gabrielle would want from her but never ask for.

 

Sappho was looking at her knowingly, and Xena couldn’t find it in her to do more than grin ruefully at everything her face must have been giving away.

 

“She’s going to love this,” Xena told her as thanks. “She’s gonna go nuts when she realizes she didn’t get to meet you.”

 

“Well, I’m performing in Thebes soon. I’d be happy to arrange tickets if you think it’s something she’ll like.”

 

With their lives, it was inevitable both that Aphrodite had spoiled the surprise and that they hadn’t made the performance. But Gabrielle had spent the day with people who loved her, so Xena would take it as a win. Sappho would still be out there - maybe next year.

 

Besides, Xena hadn’t saved the scroll for last for no reason.

 

Gabrielle gasped with delight when Xena led her to the cliff overlooking the ocean, a sunset lighting up the world in a kaleidoscopic glory of reds and pinks and golds reflected by the ocean below.

 

“Go on,” Xena said with a grin, tilting her head toward the cliff’s edge where there was a natural clearing. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

 

Gabrielle squinted her eyes suspiciously, clearly tempted to ask if this was the finally the prank Xena had kept her waiting for. Xena put on her best charming smile and felt it turn into a grin when Gabrielle sighed.

 

“Okay, but no funny business,” she warned, and skipped away to take advantage of the vista. Xena chuckled to herself as she unsaddled the horses, grabbing the saddlebag with their food and the wine she’d picked up - along with the trick cup, because she _had_ to, it was _tradition_ \- and ensured that the poem was there, tucked carefully into the side, before she turned around to join Gabrielle.

 

She stopped short almost immediately.

 

Xena almost felt that she’d stumbled into a place that wasn’t quite real. The reds of the sky had saturated Gabrielle in warmth so that she glowed in shades of bronze and gold, stray reflections off the waves shifting lightly and endlessly across her face: a counterpoint to the deep, still body of water that Gabrielle had somehow become without Xena noticing.

 

If Xena looked hard enough, she could still see the girl she had been, eighteen years old and lovely, all constant motion, cheerful chatter, stars in her eyes, and a perpetual grin on her lips. Almost a decade had gone by for that girl. She’d been beautiful, and Xena had loved her in a way that was almost inseparable from her desperation to protect her innocence from the world she followed Xena through.

 

That girl had been beautiful - but the vision of Gabrielle now before her stole Xena’s breath entirely.

 

Xena had the sudden sense that Gabrielle was standing at the edge of some great precipice of her life, too, that this was the final calm before her transformation into something too limitless and expansive for even Xena’s hands to hold. And all at once, the great privilege of having held her at all, let alone of having felt her grow and change under her hands, pressed down so hard on Xena that her entire being seized up.

 

Gabrielle finally seemed to sense Xena’s presence, and turned to face her, a small smile curving her mouth. It quickly turned into a frown when Xena, still staring, lips parted, didn’t react.

 

“What’s wrong?” she asked, and Xena reluctantly shook herself out of it until it was just Gabrielle, the woman she loved, waiting for Xena to snap out of it and celebrate her birthday with her.

 

And whatever else was coming for them, Xena could do that. She easily arranged her face into a smile and shook her head as she moved forward to meet her.

 

“You know what? Nothing,” Xena said, one hand on the scroll in her bag. “Not one thing.”

 

 


End file.
